The progression of a painter's work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles betwe… - Mark Rothko

For the first time a subject is present, not by virtue of its absence, but actually present, though its appearance is torn away, and only the structure bared. The Modern City! Precise, rectangular, squared, whether seen from above, below, or on the side; bright lights and sterilized life; Broadway, whites and blacks; and boogie-woogie; the underground music of the at once resigned and rebellious.. .Mondrian has left his white paradise, and entered the world. [1942, on the late painting Broadway Boogie Woogie of Piet Mondrian ]

One does not paint for design students or historians but for human beings, and the reaction in human terms is the only thing that is really satisfactory to the artist. [in conversation with W.C. Seitz]

[the first ingredient of his work]... is a clear preoccupation with death - intimations of mortality.